Spotlight On... Christy Bertani Bookkeeping

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"Beam me up, Scottie." Ask Christy Bertani for a snapshot of today's accounting landscape, and that's her quick witted answer. After 30 years in the bookkeeping business, like every other accounting professional today, she is learning to make her way a marketplace dominated by software automation.

The semi-retired founder of Christy Bertani Bookkeeping, a "2016 Insightful Accounting Top 100 ProAdvisor" firm, continues to assist small businesses with their bookkeeping needs, from manual journal entries and general ledgers (the "Jurassic" period, as she calls it) to the Cloud, QuickBooks Online, Xero and its accompanying apps.

You need to keep aware of all the new products that are available. And not just accounting apps, but all the ones that help you survive.

You name the profession, and her firm works with it – architects, software developers, bakers, wine distributors, craft beer makers, brokers, acupuncturists, physical therapists, air quality manufacturers (aerosol detection), travel specialists (think custom South American trips), law firms, and more.

We sat down with Christy to get her thoughts on where the industry is heading:

Give us a snapshot of today's accounting landscape. What are seeing out there?

What am I not seeing might be easier to answer. Some aging baby boomers holding on to their paper, desktop computers, software. Millennials grabbing a paperless, diminishing hardware size and software ownershipless environment. Some nextgens and boomers seeing the value in the new normal. We have the old, the new, the whiz bang, the failed. What an exciting time.

What was the biggest surprise you saw in 2016?

Surprise No. 1 was all the chatter that still exists on QuickBooks forums about how QBDT is the greatest product in the world. Comparatively, how QBO is the direct opposite. Surprise No. 2, the omnipresent fear of ProAdvisors that QBDT will be abandoned. And, if this is what they fear, why aren’t they embracing QBO (or Xero or Sage or…)?

What is the biggest item on your to-do list for 2017?

Writing humorously about bookkeeping.

What are three areas every accountant should keep an eye on next year?

Cloud, the Cloud & the Cloud. You need to keep aware of all the new products that are available. All of them are accessible by your smartphone. And not just accounting apps, but all the ones that help you survive – Uber, Lyft, Vivino, Paypal, Apple Pay, Waz (my favorite). Apps that help you shop, park, everything.

What goals have set for 2017?

There are a few. Writing. Stop dabbling with value billing and make it the norm. Use Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin more. Continue perfecting a life of semi-retirement with the help of software automation.